BRASILIA: Brazilian authorities negotiated on Monday with prison inmates holding two guards hostage after an uprising in which they killed four fellow prisoners, beheading two of them.

The prison in the southern city of Cascavel remained 60 per cent under the control of the prisoners but police had regained control of the rest, officials said.

The riot erupted on Sunday as breakfast was being delivered to during breakfast delivery with inmates overpowering guards.

Two inmates were beheaded in the first surge of violence, and two others were thrown off the top of the cellblocks.

The guards were taken hostage in the mele, Miguel Llanela, a civilian police agent assigned to the prison, said.

An official with the guards’ union said only 10 guards were on duty at the time.

“Negotiations resumed this morning” Elson Faxina, a state judicial spokesman, said.

“Agreements are advancing and we hope that during the day the issue is resolved,” he said.

Prison authorities said the inmates were demanding better facilities and greater flexibility in visiting hours and deliveries of food.

But the inmate-on-inmate violence also suggested that rivalries between competing prison gangs were a factor in the uprising.

“The fact that prisoners took hostages would reinforce that view,” Faxina said on Sunday.

There were no numbers on how many inmates were involved in the uprising, but local media said around 77 prisoners were transferred because they were threatened by the rioters.The state correctional center, which houses 1,140 inmates, has a capacity of 1,181 prisoners according to official data.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2014